Social Justice
Culture, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Autumn 2021, Peace, Social Justice
Government’s secrecy war makes us less safe
When the Australian government announced in April last year that they would be developing and deploying a smartphone application to assist contract tracing efforts as the coronavirus pandemic started to impact Australia, there was immediate and vocal public scepticism. It came from privacy advocates and the technology sector, but also human rights advocates and the broader public. The trickle of... Read More
Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Autumn 2021, Social Justice
Has COVID-19 made women more insecure at home?
In early 2020 I got stuck in New York as the world came to grips with the COVID pandemic. I had been supporting a group of Aboriginal and Pacific First Nations women who went there to tell their story and build relationships internationally, in their work to end violence against First Nations women. Over the month, I watched the city... Read More
Economy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Autumn 2021, Social Justice
Housing security – do we really understand the challenge?
In the six years I was in the flat, my rent had risen from $300 to $415 a week. Some of this reflected the market, but increasingly the condition of the flat did not reflect the rent… After three months of soggy and ruined food, I finally asked for a rent reduction. No response. So, I asked for compensation. No... Read More
Environment, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Social Justice
Green Agenda Summer 2021: Into the Fire
As I sit in my study writing this piece, I look outside to the trees in our street and the clean Canberra air. It is a far cry from what it was like just over a year ago. From November 2019 to February 2020 our beautiful city was shrouded in smoke. With fires to our north, east and west, we... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Social Justice
The fire front: Transformative politics in Queensland
Queensland bears a burden of being perceived as a deeply conservative state. One Nation emerged from the ashes in a small Queensland city called Ipswich, a coal town left in ruin once the mining moved further West. We carry the history of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era, and a violent history of colonisation and policing. We’re also home to some of... Read More
Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Peace, Social Justice
Beirut burning
Some of the worst wildfires ravaged through the mountains of Lebanon in 2019, caused by extended drought, wind and unusually dry weather. The government’s response to this crisis mirrored every government service in the country, at best inadequate, and mostly non-existent. In 2020 more than 100 wildfires spread again throughout the mountains in the southern Chouf and in the northern... Read More
Environment, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Peace, Social Justice
A fiery trifecta
We are in the midst of a fiery trifecta of crises: climate, covid, nuclear. They’re all connected, and all capable of great damage, and of great transformation. The climate crisis just keeps getting worse, as governments refuse to take the bold and necessary actions to limit global warming to 1.5%. This challenge has been sneaking up on us for more... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Social Justice
Burning debate: Building consensus from the ashes
During the summer that preceded COVID, my family left me home alone and set off on the five-hour annual road trip to Nowa Nowa, not far from Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland. As flames spread across Victoria and New South Wales, my partner, daughter and son were evacuated the next day. When the area was declared safe, they returned home.... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Spring 2020, Social Justice
‘Now is the time for bold decision making’: Senator Siewert on the lessons of 2020
What a strange year 2020 has been. We entered it under a fog of smoke with parts of the country barely able to breathe, and growing community anger as fires burned. The links were being made stronger than ever, the fires were due to climate change – surely there would finally be decisive action taken, surely there was no choice... Read More
Economy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Spring 2020, Social Justice
The trash economy: employment in the post-Covid era
On a landfill site outside the village of Kafr Lusin in northwest Syria, teenagers sort through the mountain of toxic household waste, looking for reusable plastic that can be traded for a few coins. At the Ars Electronica Centre in Linz, school children visiting the Machine Learning Studio work with tech trainers to learn how robots are programmed. These might... Read More